clonazepam taper

[hydroazuanacaine]

hi,

i am having a difficult time getting off of klonopin. i was at 2.5-3mg a day for a little less than a year. i have been scripted benzos for years, but this is my most recent dose. i told my psych i wanted off. he said -.5mg a week was an easy, slow taper. i have gotten to .5mg, but i feel horrible. really it started being horrible at 1mg, and i have not been able to consistently take .5mg. like yesterday i took the .5 and ended up taking 1mg of ativan at like 4am because i still wasn't asleep. the day before that i think i got away with .5mg. the day before that .75mg. you get the idea, i am at .5, but often can't make it through the day at that dose and cave.

i'm having a hard time determining if i feel horrible because i am depressed and riddled with anxiety without it, or if because this is too fast of a taper plan and i am getting physical withdrawal. i imagine it is a combination of both. fuck, what i am asking is, is -.5mg a week too fast? in general, as i am sure it varies.

if i call my psych and tell him what a hard time i am having, he's gonna be difficult about it. as in want me to go on an SSRI, which is not an option. i am a little afraid he gave me a difficult taper plan in order to convince me i need to be on an SSRI. but i also feel like i am not very in touch with reality at the moment. i am going to call him, but i'd like to know what the usual taper rate is.

thanks

edit:
actually maybe i was at 2.5-3mg a day for about the last 6 months, and at 1.5mg a day for about 6 months before that.

 

[ErgicMergic]

.5mg a week is way too fast once you get under 1-1.5mg. A 10% cut per week is more realistic.

I would go to Ashton's Benzo Manual, and discuss a more proper taper plan with your doctor, preferably switch to 10mg of diazepam from 0.5mg of clonazepam, and taking it from there.

Valium has a longer half life, and is much weaker on a mg per mg basis, allowing smaller, more accurate cuts for a more consistent taper. Using a slow diazepam taper gives you the best chance of staying clean for good. Even maintaining at 1.25mg valium for a month from a slow, 3 month taper wasn't enough for me to avoid a bit of WD, so slow down and do not touch SSRI's or anything else that lowers your seizure threshold at a time when you are prone to them.

Take chelated Magnesium 300-600mg, L-Theanine 200mg, and Melatonin 1mg, they are all great for your purpose.

If you feel "horrible" at 1mg, then you need to go back up to a dosage that makes you feel OK and taper slowly. You can switch 1mg of clonaz to 20mg of diazepam for a slow taper with accurate cuts.

 

[tentram]

it's understandable you're a little out of touch at the moment . it's not easy coming off a long term benzo habit - you'll be feeling it psychologically and physically. they're (withdrawals) a manifestation of many symptoms and after such a time can take some months to begin to reach back to square. that is a rather rapid taper when i look at it from my experiences with diazepam tapers.

would taking an ssri from your doctors point of view make him anymore compliant in tapering at a slower rate? humour him if you must for a better peace of mind and to rule them out as an aid. it's best to have that you're having a hard time on record than keeping your mouth shut.

if it was your call to get off hopefully that should allow some leeway in your favour in course. best of luck.

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

i brought up the seizure thing with my doc when he said they would help me get off the kpin, and in response he just asked if i had any history of seizures. the tone of his question made it sound like my question was silly if not. i'm done with SSRIs forever anyway.

.5mg a week is way too fast once you get under 1-1.5mg. A 10% cut per week is more realistic.

good to hear i am not being weird or an unfortunate exception. from 1.5 to 1 was when it got so hard. thank you for the response.

 

[ErgicMergic]

Not a problem!

Benzo withdrawal and PAWS is extremely serious, I would do as much research as possible and ask more questions online if your doctor can't answer them properly. Benzo WD sucks, but with a proper, slow diazepam taper, and a bit of work from you for therapy, diet, and exercise, you can make it a relatively uneventful and smooth process.

The best advice I can give is to take it slow. Slow and steady wins the race with benzo tapers. Good luck! :D

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

if it was your call to get off hopefully that should allow some leeway in your favour in course. best of luck.

he wanted me to stay on it. so i can only imagine he'll be willing to slow the taper. i also have refills to get hundreds more than i currently have--no idea if he is aware. the refills will probably get canceled if i switch to valium, but whatever. i just didn't want to slow down if gritting through it is the way to go. though currently i am going backward some days, and i have read that is bad. thanks for the support, both of you. seems i have to call him.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

.5mg a week is way too fast once you get under 1-1.5mg. A 10% cut per week is more realistic.

I would go to Ashton's Benzo Manual, and discuss a more proper taper plan with your doctor, preferably switch to 10mg of diazepam from 0.5mg of clonazepam, and taking it from there.

Valium has a longer half life, and is much weaker on a mg per mg basis, allowing smaller, more accurate cuts for a more consistent taper. Using a slow diazepam taper gives you the best chance of staying clean for good. Even maintaining at 1.25mg valium for a month from a slow, 3 month taper wasn't enough for me to avoid a bit of WD, so slow down and do not touch SSRI's or anything else that lowers your seizure threshold at a time when you are prone to them.

Take chelated Magnesium 300-600mg, L-Theanine 200mg, and Melatonin 1mg, they are all great for your purpose.

If you feel "horrible" at 1mg, then you need to go back up to a dosage that makes you feel OK and taper slowly. You can switch 1mg of clonaz to 20mg of diazepam for a slow taper with accurate cuts.

This. I also recommend picking yourself up some valerian root powder capsules, which are available at any health food store (in addition to the supplements ErgicMagic mentioned). Clonazepam is a good benzo for tapering but since its such a high potency breaking it down into doses lower than 1mg or 0.5mg can be tricky. That's where diazepam comes in. I hope your psych isn't trying to rush your taper to put you on a SSRI. That will only make your anxiety worse.

Take tapering down from this last 1mg (or whatever dose you need to be at to stabilize yourself first) really, really slowly.

Good luck and keep us posted

 

[Tommyboy]

.5mg a week is way too fast once you get under 1-1.5mg. A 10% cut per week is more realistic.

I would go to Ashton's Benzo Manual, and discuss a more proper taper plan with your doctor, preferably switch to 10mg of diazepam from 0.5mg of clonazepam, and taking it from there.

Valium has a longer half life, and is much weaker on a mg per mg basis, allowing smaller, more accurate cuts for a more consistent taper. Using a slow diazepam taper gives you the best chance of staying clean for good. Even maintaining at 1.25mg valium for a month from a slow, 3 month taper wasn't enough for me to avoid a bit of WD, so slow down and do not touch SSRI's or anything else that lowers your seizure threshold at a time when you are prone to them.

Take chelated Magnesium 300-600mg, L-Theanine 200mg, and Melatonin 1mg, they are all great for your purpose.

If you feel "horrible" at 1mg, then you need to go back up to a dosage that makes you feel OK and taper slowly. You can switch 1mg of clonaz to 20mg of diazepam for a slow taper with accurate cuts.

I agree, but would recommend trying a lower dose at first if you are able to taper using valium. I went from 1mg of alprazolam to 10mg of diazepam, and I was fine. Now even though alprazolam and clonazepam are relatively equipotent that doesn't mean that 10mg of diazepam will cover you if you switch at 1mg of clonazepam, but I would try it first before jumping up to 20mg. Maybe you will fall somewhere in between those dosages, if you can switch that is.

 

[ErgicMergic]

^ Great point. Relative to its low potency, Valium is a very physically sedating benzo, moreso than Xanax or Klonopin. So, 10mg diazepam could feel much like 1mg xanax or klonopin, or at least give you the same relief from benzo WD. Valium's potency is commonly debated on Bluelight, with some posters such as Tommyboy and myself thinking that 10mg of diazepam = 1mg alprazolam, while others think 10mg diaz = 0.5mg alprazolam.

One thing I'm confused about, Tommyboy, when you say 10mg Valium = 1mg Xanax in other threads, do you mean once you have taken it for a while and allowed the Valium to build up in your bloodstream? Speaking of which, hydroazuanacaine, you might want to give the diazepam a couple of days to build up in your bloodstream, as I suspect most of the therapeutic benefit comes from a steady plasma level of it that has been built up by repeated dosing.

 

[NeighborhoodThreat]

^Another good point. One thing that makes diazepam different from clonazepam is diazepam usually does take a few doses for both the diazepam levels to stabilize and for the levels of the active metabolites to stabilize. The presence of active metabolites will also make tapering easier with diazepam.

 

[tentram]

i brought up the seizure thing with my doc when he said they would help me get off the kpin, and in response he just asked if i had any history of seizures. the tone of his question made it sound like my question was silly if not. i'm done with SSRIs forever anyway.

unless you're prone to seizures in the first place, a reason why you may be on them, ssri's are being used concomitantly more often when tapering from benzo's (ime) to help with the coincided depression. efficacy is debatable; i've never had much luck.

 

[Tommyboy]

One thing I'm confused about, Tommyboy, when you say 10mg Valium = 1mg Xanax in other threads, do you mean once you have taken it for a while and allowed the Valium to build up in your bloodstream?

It's hard to say because I had a few xanax left over to take during the first few days of switching over to the valium. I didn't take it out of necessity though, I was on a long car ride so wanted to be knocked out for it, and then I took my last one the next day. It was more of a comfort blanket for me since I didn't know how well the valium would work considering the conflicting conversion charts, but after I took 10mg and was fine I took some xanax. Even if that allowed the valium to build up in my system, that's still a pretty big gap between 10-20mg, so I can't see how the 1mg of xanax wasn't equal to the 10mg of valium, at least in my case.

It usually took me 2-3 weeks to drop by 2mg of valium since I would get minor withdrawals (plus I was tapering while taking 19 upper division credits per semester in my senior year of college, so I needed to take it slow so I could get a bit of sleep) and since I never felt those withdrawals during my switch that's another reason why I think the doses were equipotent.

It's at least worth a try to see if you can get by on the 10mg, or maybe a little higher of a dose instead of blindly taking 20mg. My doctor seemed to have some experience with tapering, and he pretty much laughed at me when I brought in a conversion chart showing 0.5mg xanax = 10mg of valium and I asked to switch from the 1mg of xanax to 20mg valium. I'm glad he didn't go along with it because that [being put on 10mg instead of 20mg] shaved 5 months off of my taper.